Posts Tagged ‘RAID’

The Israel Police National Unit along with additional forces on Sunday morning raided several locations and detained more than 20 suspects, among them senior Balad party officials, attorneys and accountants, in connection with suspicion of committing fraud in relation to funds accepted by the party and used in its budget.

Balad, whose name is an Hebrew acronym meaning National Democratic Union, is an Israeli Arab political party led by MK Jamal Zahalka. In 2015, following the raising of the prerequisite threshold for entering the Knesset, Balad, which counts MK Haneen Zoabi among its members, joined the Arab Joint List, which currently has 13 MKs.

The current investigation is being carried out with approval from the AG, according to the recommendations of the State Attorney, in light of findings of the State Comptroller. The police is being aided by the Authority for the Prohibition of Money Laundering and Financing of Terrorism, as well as by the Ministry of Finance Inspection Unit on Currency Service Providers.

The findings of the State Comptroller and a police covert investigation have given rise to the suspicion that Balad senior officials and activists, in collusion with several attorneys and accountants, have been running a systematic operation misrepresenting the source of millions of dollars contributed to the party coffers. According to police allegations, the funds, which were reported as coming from party members inside Israel, were, in effect, contributed illegally from abroad.

The detainees are facing allegations of aggravated fraud, falsifying corporate documents, forgery, use of forged documents, money laundering, and violations of the party funding law and the local municipalities law.

Police on Sunday morning seized documents and other incriminating materials, including bank account records, for the purpose of future confiscation requests.

A large police force raided a yeshiva in Nahliel, a Haredi Israeli communal village in Benjamin Region. According to a report from the Honenu legal aid society, police arrested four yeshiva students, all minors, injuring several students in the process. Attorney Adi Keidar commented that “police would not have dared to behave this way in a Tel Aviv school.”

According to Honenu, the police force, which included detectives from the nationalist crimes unit in the Judea and Samaria district arrived at the yeshiva around 7 AM and started arresting 14-year-old students. For some police showed warrants, others were picked up without court authorization. The yeshiva staff complained of severe violence used by the arresting officers, which caused injuries to a number of students.

According to Honenu, several yeshiva staff and students were summoned for interrogations over the past few weeks, regarding a school trip several months ago, during which police claim they damaged pipes belonging to Arabs. Honenu says police used threats against the minors who were being interrogated, and refused to inform their parents.

Attorney Keidar related that when the yeshiva dean told police one of the boys being sought was sick, he was told to bring somebody in his place, which, Keidar suggests, meant police are on a fishing expedition.

Netanya Mayor Miriam Feirberg Ikar is expected to be invited for police questioning with a warning, as part of a large-scale investigation of the Netanya municipality which culminated with a raid of city hall Monday morning. A senior source in the police has told Haaretz that the mayor and members of her family may be suspects. Searches in the homes and offices of several suspects as well as offices in Netanya’s city hall building have yielded documents and other content. Three men, including an attorney and a developer have been detained for questioning.

According to an Haaretz investigation, the mayor’s family members have been involved in construction projects associated with members of tycoon Yitzhak Tshuva, the chairman of El-Ad Group which owned the New York Plaza Hotel.

Investigators of the Lahav 433 crime-fighting umbrella organization within the Israel Police along with Income Tax investigators on Monday carried out raids in multiple locations in the coastal city of Netanya. Also on hand were the Prohibition of Money Laundering and Financing of Terrorism Authority, and the State Attorney’s Economic Department. A preliminary announcement states that the investigation is based on suspicion that elements involved in construction have promoted their interests illegally with the Netanya municipality, among other things through bribery and while committing tax violations.

Back in 2007 police closed a similar investigation of Mayor Feirberg for lack of sufficient evidence.

Feirberg is the first female mayor elected in Netanya and one of very few women who have served as mayors in Israel. She was first elected in 1998, and again in 2003, 2008 and 2013. She has won a prize for efficient management from the Union of Local Authorities in Israel.

Netanya is one of the most affluent cities in Israel, and has attracted a large population of Russian and French immigrants. The city is considered one of the cleanest in Israel, with a long stretch of sandy beaches. It features of balanced mix of secular, national-religious and Haredi Jews, and is home to a growing Arab population.

The agreement, signed by Turkish and Israeli negotiators on June 27, restores diplomatic ties between the two former allies after a hiatus of more than six years. Israeli charge d’affaires in Ankara, Amira Oron, said Monday (August 29) the two countries are expected to exchange ambassadors sometime within the next several weeks.

“The Law No. 6743 regarding the approval of the agreement between the Republic of Turkey and the State of Israel over compensation has been submitted to the Prime Ministry for promulgation,” a statement by the president’s office said.

Erdogan sent the agreement 12 days after it was officially approved by the Turkish parliament, and following its approval by Israeli cabinet ministers in late June.

The deal was ratified by Turkish lawmakers on August 19 after weeks of delay due to an attempted coup that failed to overthrow the Turkish government on July 15.

The agreement ends a period of rancor that followed an ugly incident in 2010 in which an illegal flotilla attempted to breach Israel’s maritime blockade of Gaza. Among the six vessels participating in the incident was a Turkish ship. Israeli commandos boarding the vessel to redirect it to Ashdod port were attacked by armed “activists” who included Turkish citizens; the resulting clash left 10 Turks dead and numerous Israelis seriously wounded.

Turkey demanded an apology, payment of $20 million in compensation to the families of the dead and lifting of the blockade on Gaza in order to restore relations. “Ankara now considers these terms satisfied,” according to a report published Wednesday in the Hurriyet Daily News. “Israel will hand Turkey a ‘lump sum’ payment within 25 working days of the agreement coming into force, with families of the victims able to access the funds in due course.

“Both sides also agreed individual Israeli citizens or those acting on behalf of the Israeli government would not be held liable — either criminally or financially — for the raid,” according to the report.

Turkey has already been allowed to ship its own humanitarian aid into Gaza, and plans have been started for Ankara to build a hospital in the region.

A security force comprised of IDF, Border Guard and police, that had raided and captured a weapons making facility in the town of Al-Ram, north-east of Jerusalem, identified a speeding vehicle that was approaching them in a manner that suggested a terrorist intent. The force, which felt that their lives were at risk, opened fire. One of the passengers in the ramming vehicle was killed and another injured. A third man was arrested and taken for a Shabak interrogation.

A souvenir shop in the Mamilla Mall near Jerusalem’s Old City was raided by officers of the Israel Antiquities Authority’s (IAA) Tuesday night after it was discovered that the store served as a front for illegal antiquities trading. The raid yielded a treasure trove of close to a thousand items of questionable provenance. Bronze arrowheads thousands of years old, coins minted 2,000 years ago during the days of King Herod, Hasmonean rulers, and even Alexander the Great, and special vessels for storing perfumes.

“The souvenir shop, which did not have an antiquities sales license, had been under surveillance for a while,” Dr. Eitan Klein, who supervises the antiquities trade for the IAA, told TPS, adding, “During the second stage of the investigation, our agents posed as collectors and tourists, and purchased undocumented ancient artifacts from the shop. Finally, last night we raided the place and seized all the illegal antiquities. This operation is part of a broader enforcement of new laws and regulations governing the Israeli antiquities trade.”

According to the IAA, these regulations and the subsequent law enforcement activities are designed to prevent antiquities dealers from laundering illegal artifacts that are the product of antiquities robbery, the illicit excavation for profit of archaeological sites.

“Laundering artifacts means taking antiquities obtained through robbery, and inserting them into merchants’ commercial inventory in order to pass them off as legal and sell them. We estimate that today about 90% of undocumented and unregulated artifacts originate in robbery and looting,” Klein explained.

A salesperson at the store in question, Mamilla Souvenir’s (sic), denied all the allegations, telling TPS that “all our goods are clean. I’m sure the matter will be cleared in the next few days.” However, according to the IAA, an indictment will soon be filed against the shop’s owner, who was unavailable to comment.

“Antiquities robbers and the unlicensed antiquities dealers will very quickly come to understand that they have no one to sell the stolen antiquities to and, in the absence of demand, the plundering of antiquities in Israel will be greatly reduced,” predicted the head of IAA’s Antiquities Robbery Prevention Unit, Amir Ganor.

IDF soldiers entered the Arab town of Nil’in late Sunday night to hunt down three Arabs who crossed the security fence after allegedly having kidnaped an Israeli citizen, according to the Hebrew-language ‘0404‘ news website.

Nil’in is located 17 kilometers (about 10 miles) west of Ramallah, but just a mile north of the Jewish city of Modi’in Illit. It is also very close to the 1949 Armistice Line (the so-called “Green Line”) and not far from Highway 443, where there have been numerous Arab attacks on Jews during the terror wave that began last October.

It’s not clear how the infiltrators managed to get through the security fence.

The hostage was dragged into a location in the village while a mob of Arabs pelted the IDF troops with stones. Other Arabs placed rocks in the road in order to block vaccess by Israeli army vehicles.

Neither strategy was effective in stopping the IDF forces, who simply pushed through the hail of rocks and entered Ni’ilin to search for the kidnap victim.

A group of IDF soldiers were successful in tracking down the hostage and rescuing him, miraculously unharmed, while a second unit covered them with gunfire aimed at the rioting Arabs who had begun to surround the house where the captive was being held.

No details have been released about the identity of the kidnap victim or about which IDF units tracked down his captors and got him out of there alive and in one piece. All Israeli soldiers reportedly returned safely to base.